The intro to Songs of Glimmerwick did spark a wave of nostalgia for my time at university. It opens with us arriving at a strange, sprawling building and listening to a long speech. You’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder with complete strangers. Then you’re shown to a strange bedroom and left to your own devices. Slowly, you get used to everyone and things settle into a routine. For instance, every morning starts with wandering into a common area and seeing a sea of hungover faces staring back at you. Songs of Glimmerwick differs on that point, actually. Its Etchery feels less like a university than it does a boarding school for secondary students.
A specific boarding school, actually. One for wizards and witches, in a fantasy series that shall not be named here. Either way, it’s a premise with promise. It’s the perfect setting for a game that wants things to be cozy, and it nails that vibe. Songs of Glimmerwick feels like the video game version of snuggling up under a blanket with a steaming cup of hot chocolate. From the visuals to the dialogue, everything is designed to be chill. I appreciate that a lot, though Songs of Glimmerwick needs reminding that if you relax too much, you’re in danger of falling asleep.
Magic 101
Songs of Glimmerwick‘s world impressed me right out of the gate, both in visuals and worldbuilding. Aesthetically, it’s beautiful. The world of Glimmerwick is fairly big and split into different sections. You start off on a beach, go through a lovely green forest, and arrive at the school. The school itself is in bright colours, with roaring fireplaces in most of the rooms. There’s that cozy vibe. Then if you keep going east, everything dissolves into a lovely burnt orange forest, or hills full of wild thyme. Everything is nicely varied. The art has a nice simplicity to it, so it feels like we’re wandering into different paintings with each biome. It’s just pleasing to the eye.
The lore behind the world is interesting too. Magic in this world is akin to music, both harmonious and discordant. When the universe was created, and the silence was broken, it was nice at first. But soon, discordant sounds were starting to become louder. The universe got huffy and sent natural disasters down to hush it up. As a result, a wave of people believing in ‘Silence’ was created. They believe noise – of any kind, in the most extreme sects – is bad, with magic being the worst noise. So the world is trapped between those who want to be silent, and those who want to use magic. It’s a great backstory, and Glimmerwick works hard to keep it unclear whether or not the ‘Silencers’ have an actual point.
Still, while the world is interesting, there doesn’t seem to be much room for our protagonist. Our hero decides he’s had enough of being silent, and hops on a ship. Once we arrive in Glimmerwick, we basically stumble into school without even enrolling. From there, we just wander into plot events. There’s a big overarching plot about a woman who burned the forest responsible for magic on the island, which is presented as a dividing issue. But we only become relevant to that at the very end. The rest is spent just doing classes and hanging out with friends. It was a little hard to get invested in the story, which seemed to be a lot more dark and brooding than the rest of the game.
Arcane Farming
Still, once our protagonist does alight, Songs of Glimmerwick gives them a lot of responsibility. Firstly, we have to attend classes. We need to learn how to cast spells, make potions and take care of plants. Spells are done through a nice little rhythm game. As magic is done through music in this world, you need to play your flute. The spells are not so complex that it’ll tax you too much, and the songs are quite pleasant. I liked it. I especially liked that the inevitable fishing minigame was just a simple rhythm game. If nothing else, Songs of Glimmerwick deserves an award for being a cozy sim with an actually tolerable fishing minigame.
Potion crafting is done through a small game where you fling ingredients into cauldrons. It’s not too bad, and requires a set list of ingredients. Most of which we grow ourselves in our own farming plot. The twist is, we do most of the farming through magic. So we direct our farming tools like they’re the broomsticks in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Otherwise it’s fairly standard for this sort of thing, but I like that the ingredients feed into the potion making. Potions are integral to exploring the world, which is something that is very key to Songs of Glimmerwick. In fact, it’s about as core a mechanic as it has.
The world is chock-full of secrets, which get unravelled as we learn more spells and potions. Poking about in the corners of the world, and taking on quests from the townsfolk, fills most of the day. It’s nice to see all the previously impassable areas become accessible as we get stronger. It’s done in quite a linear fashion (as it’s usually obvious where you need to go when you get a new spell), but it means that we’re drip-fed new areas. Then when we’re not exploring, we chat with our school friends and head off to class. It’s a pleasant loop, and Songs of Glimmerwick is constantly bringing in new things.
Casting A Wide Net
I do have a fundamental problem with Songs of Glimmerwick though, and I think it’s that it works hard to stretch itself over a wide area, but never stops to give its mechanics depth. Let’s start with those school friends. While we do have pleasant chats with them, our relationship never really evolves over the course of the year. The one I resonated with most was Clover, our roommate, as she has a lot of chaotic energy that actually generated friction. Most of the rest of the students all blurred together, as they’re all just pleasant and amenable in their chatter. There was no friction to set any of them apart. Everyone just smiled and nodded at me, and half the time they would just repeat the same dialogue.
The farming suffers from the same lack of depth. At the beginning, it’s a good way to get the cash we need to plant potion ingredients. By the end of the first term though, I was quickly making more money than I needed. There are some set purchases that require a deep wallet, but you can make much more money by just foraging for mushrooms. By the time I had bought a boat, I had no real need for money. So my farm was just about planting whatever ingredients I needed. It doesn’t even take much effort, as you get a watering spell really early on. So I’d head out to tend my farm in the morning and be done by nine-thirty. I even got a harvest spell at one point. Songs of Glimmerwick is determined to remove its own gameplay, it seems.
Which brings me to my most damning point: Songs of Glimmerwick really doesn’t have enough to do, day by day. Even classes are just one per subject, per term. And they’re just usually a brief chat, followed by learning one new spell or potion. My calendar was 50% empty for the rest of it. Glimmerwick prides itself on having no real time limits, but this works against it. There’s a reason Stardew Valley has us spent half the day watering the plants. It’s so we always have something to do. Here, once you’ve sold your plants and satisfied yourself that your schoolfriends aren’t saying anything new, all you’re left with is your quest list. If all your quests are waiting for your plants to grow, then you might as well just call it quits and go back to bed. Which is at least on brand for a university student.
Songs of Glimmerwick – Cozy But Confused
The end result is a game where its systems don’t seem to fit in well with each other. The task list gives the feeling of a light RPG, which seems to be most of the core of Songs of Glimmerwick. Most of them are really involved, like raising structures from the ocean or helping your roommate sell knick-knacks at the market. An absolute standout is a lovely D’n’D campaign that evolves across each term. But every time we’re sent off to brew a potion, things all grind to a halt as we grapple with the less interesting systems. And even then, the interesting bits get smothered in the name of convenience. You only need to do the rhythm game once for each spell, for instance, before we can permanently assign it to our hotbar.
It feels like Songs of Glimmerwick wanted to be an RPG, with an emphasis on exploration and music, but along the way the scope got a bit of hand. As a result, all of the usual farming sim trappings are thrown in, but without any thought on how to properly integrate them. Take the fishing as another example. Always a fringe activity at the best of times, but here it pays complete peanuts and once you complete a certain quest, it becomes pointless. Songs of Glimmerwick either needed to stop patronising us and make us pay attention to the clock, or it needed to cut away some of the unnecessary fat and focus on a set of core mechanics. By trying to meet things in the middle, it provides an experience that is undeniably cozy, but dips too often into sluggishness.
Or they could emulate my university experience, and have a quest about getting obliterated on tequila, swearing off of it the next day, and then doing it again next week.
